Ch. 02 Planes, Trains, And Shitty Automobiles.
The Wanderers had been a natural consequence of the developing Free Cities. After the bombs had fallen, and throughout the long centuries of humanity being uplifted by the strong and courageous Black Race, some dissenters fled the influence of the BNWO. Either because they feared persecution for their beliefs, or desired the freedom to plot against the newly forming law of the land. With the ever-increasing influence of the Cities, those seeking refuge from their oversight were pushed deeper and deeper into the dead wastes of the continent.
The lack of resources and extremely harsh conditions had led to an incredibly severe regression among the bands of humans that chose to make the wind-blasted dunes their home. They became nomads, roaming great distances in search of food and water, supplies and tools, and most importantly, other humans. To keep their warbands alive, they needed bodies, and because of the inferiority of their genetics, coupled with the rarity of resources, producing enough offspring to maintain their scarce way of life was next to impossible.
This naturally resulted in most warbands kidnapping as many people as they could in their raids. Introducing new breeding stock to their bloodlines was an important factor in keeping their genetic lineage from degrading further, and in the worst of times, the extra souls could be expended as sustenance. These cannibalistic practices had brought many to believe that the Wanderers had finally diverged entirely from humanity. Eve would catch a news blurb every few months about another raid happening somewhere on the continent but had never experienced one herself.
Rumors of the Wanderers were as varied as rumors got; from there being hidden cities deep beneath the sand to wonderous oases dotted throughout the desert. Everyone had their idea of what the Wanderers were, and with nothing available to debunk any of the rumors, they were allowed to spread like wildfire. Not one person had ever been recovered from a Wanderer raid, and those who came forward to claim they'd found their way back to a City after being taken had all been proven to be lying.
As Eve and Carmine crashed through the final door leading to the breached compartment, Eve finally realized that the rumors of the Wanderers were woefully short of accurately describing them. The massive lance that had pierced the side of the train car served two purposes, the first was to latch the land yacht to the car, and the second was to allow raider access. The tip of the lance was completely hollow, and Wanderers scrambled out of it and into the car like cockroaches. The rancid stink that filled the narrow compartment hit Eve like a slap in the face.
Her eyes burned as she tried to keep herself from retching just beyond the doorway. Either they'd released some kind of gas into the compartment as a breaching maneuver, or they just naturally stank like that, Eve didn't know and didn't care. The first raider to spot Eve turned in her direction and howled a great, ear-piercing screech the likes of which Eve had never heard. It was a feral, shrill, berserk scream of incomprehensible rage, the sort of sound no true human could replicate. And it worked; Eve was bolted in place as her instinctual fear of the monster overrode her consciousness.
It was swathed head to toe in filthy scraps of fabric and leather, stitched together in a patchwork bodysuit of thick linens and skin. Blood and other fluids stained the fabric in a pattern that made it look like a molting animal. Its face was covered by a strange bone mask with incredibly narrow eye slits. The mouth curled up in a bizarre and uncanny simulacrum of a smile that caused the hair on the back of Eve's neck to stand painfully on end. Its movements were spastic and frenetic, as though the energy in its body was too much for it to control. This wasn't just ‘not human’, this was a monster, a horrendous demon in the form of a human.
Any semblance of human traits had long since left this creature behind on the evolutionary scale. There would be no reasoning, there would be no dialogue, and there would be no compassion or empathy or even understanding. Carmine stepped in front of Eve and removed the creature's head from its body with a flick of her War-wire. The two daggers it held clattered to the floor as its body lost cohesive contact with its brain stem. Eve's eyes trailed to the floor where the blades skittered to her feet. The handles were very distinctly the ends of femurs from human thighs.
“EVE! SNAP THE FUCK OUT OF IT!” Carmine bellowed as she kicked shut an open door that was jutting into the hallway. Two more of the creatures whipped their heads around to investigate the source of the bang. One of them dropped a lifeless child to the floor and snatched a set of daggers from its belt as it turned to charge. Eve mechanically raised her Deckland and fired at it but the creature leapt and twisted unnaturally through the air to avoid the shot. The second beast snarled and let out another blood-curdling screech that momentarily deafened Eve.
Even having just come out of a life-or-death battle with a God hadn't prepared her for the level of inhumanity she was witnessing. The sound of muffled gunfire rattled through the connecting door to the train car on the other side of the Wanderers. Carmine intercepted the one sailing through the air and slammed it into the steel floor panels with such force that they buckled under the hellspawn. Its head exploded from the impact and the second Wanderer drew something from its waistband. Eve thought it looked like some kind of metal pipe, but then the creature raised it like a gun.
Every instinct in her body screamed at her to dodge and she barely managed to throw herself against the wall as a hunk of lead was thrown from the end of its weapon. The projectile punched a hole through the door behind her the size of her palm and she suddenly snapped back into the moment. She raised her gun and began to return fire as the abomination attempted the same uncanny acrobatics as the last one. Eve was ready for it and managed to peg it with several shots as it spun through the air.
Its body slammed gracelessly into the floor and gurgled as she stepped up and put two more rounds into the back of its skull. Screams erupted from the next compartment and Eve locked eyes with Carmine as they charged towards the door. Carmine set her boot into the handle so hard that the slab of steel bent in on itself as it swung into the next car. One of the Wanderers had been directly behind it, and as a result, ended up plastered all over the wall where the door had pancaked it. Eve caught a glimpse of a woman being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the end of the lance that had come through the wall.
She was missing an eye and a cut across her body from the struggle. She made eye contact with Eve in the second before her head disappeared down the tip of the lance. “FUCK! CARMINE, GET HER!” Eve began to lay down suppressing fire on the group of three wanderers huddled around the door on the opposite side of the car. They scattered like startled animals and Eve could see the breaching charge they'd planted on the door. Two of them ducked into an open doorway on the right side of the hall and the third lunged for Carmine as she came to the tip of the lance. With a flick of her wrist, the monster lost both its arms and wailed as it flailed its stumps wildly.
Carmine dove down the tub and Eve continued to pin the other two wanderers in their room with periodic shots as they poked their heads out. A loud beeping began to emit from the device they'd stuck to the door and Eve twirled behind an open door to her left just before it exploded. Shards of metal sprayed down the hall and pinged harmlessly off the door. The concussive blast further served to damage her hearing and Eve was certain that she'd just lost her right eardrum. She didn't bother checking the ammo count in her magazine before replacing it with a new one; she stuck the gun into the hall, fired two shots, and then poked her head out to inspect the scene.
The blast had torn the door off its hinges and through the smoke Eve could see the faces of terrified passengers huddling on the floor of the train car. There were dozens of them desperately trying to swarm over one another to get to the safe end of the car. It had likely been one of the designated safe cars, which explained why the Wanderers needed to blow the door open instead of just batter it down. Carmine emerged from the end of the lance carrying an unconscious woman, she turned back and pointed her hand down the tube before her wrist unhinged and revealed a barrel.
With a meaty ‘thump’ a small orb was ejected from her wrist and she brought the woman towards Eve. There was a hiss as the projectile Carmine launched began to discharge gas into the lance. One of the two trapped Wanderers tried its luck and dove for the newly opened doorway at the end of the car. Eve plugged it with two shots and as it hit the floor she followed up with another four. “She alive?” Eve glanced at the woman draped under Carmine's arm.
“Yep, gonna need a new eye and probably a new hand, but she'll live.” Carmine dumped the woman to the floor and turned to face the far end of the train car. “I think they'll be detaching soon, based on the chatter I'm hearing the Wanderers are facing some pretty heavy losses compared to their gains. The second yacht is five cars down from us and across several safe-cars so we won't be interfering with that fight.”
Eve grimaced, “how many have they taken?”
Carmine entered her fugue state for a brief moment, likely to review the external camera feeds. “It looks like they managed to snag 13 people. We got the light raid compared to the other side, once they're all said and done the Wanderers will have lost 15 by my count.”
Eve kept one eye on the doorway where the remaining raider was biding its time. “That includes the monster in there, right?” Carmine nodded and Eve gestured at the people in the other car to continue moving back. She stepped forward tentatively, edging herself closer and closer to the doorway with her pistol raised. She had three shots left and needed to make them count. She took a deep breath and gathered what little courage she had to make the final step around the edge of the doorway.
But just as she started lifting her foot there was a massive ‘thunk’ that rocked the car. The Wanderer trapped in the room exploded out the door and hurled itself at the opening of the lance. Eve had just enough time to put a single shot into the back of its thigh before the 4 huge barbs holding the lance in place began to retract into the lance. With a final, prolonged screech of steel, the lance slid from the open side of the train and tumbled through the desert as it was retracted towards the retreating yacht. Eve threw a shoulder against the gaping hole and aimed the receding vehicle. She could see figures moving about on its exposed deck, hauling things to an open grate that led below the deck.
Some of those things they were hauling looked an awful lot like people, and so she fired. Partly in the hopes of pegging a few of the Wanderers, but mainly in the hopes of hitting the civilians; if she could spare even one of them from the fate that awaited them, it would be worth it. But she had no way to tell if any of her shots landed; in all likelihood, it had been an entirely fruitless waste of ammunition. But she had tried, and the people in the next train car began to cheer and applaud both her and Carmine's efforts to save them. They threw praise at her feet, bowed, clasped their hands, and cried as they began to emerge from the cramped car.
Eve felt nothing but disgust for the creatures. They'd huddled in their shelter like a bunch of trapped rats; every last one of them was white and Eve had absolutely no doubt in her mind that the ones being thrown through the grate on the yacht had been the few valor Black Kings and Queens who'd stepped up to protect the train. Her rage built as she considered the plight of the poor souls now doomed to an unfathomable existence among the Warband that had kidnapped them. She turned from the crowd and spent the last few bullets she had made sure the Wanderers bleeding out on the floor were truly dead.
Carmine caught up and fell in beside her as they walked, “One day we'll need to go after them, too. The Wanderers are a threat that cannot be allowed to exist.” Eve agreed with her but said nothing. “Did you get a look at their faces? I checked under one of those masks and… I don't think those things are human anymore…” Eve didn't particularly care what they were; human or not the result would be the same either way.
“I'm tired… Carmine. So very, deeply tired. It hasn't even been a day since our last near-death experience. I don't know how much I can take if things keep up this pace.” They passed by the corpse of the child; there was a gaping bite wound in its neck. “How long till we get to Cartafell now?”
Carmine closed her eyes as she calculated, “The train didn't stop, but it did slow down after it was hooked. It looks like two and a half hours, give or take.”
Eve nodded at that. “Let me sleep until we arrive. I just… I don't want to be awake, right now, ok?”
Carmine pulled her in for a tight hug and kissed the side of her head, “As you wish, darlin’.”
Eve slept fitfully. None of the dreams she had made any sense and ultimately only served to disquiet her. Instead of being restful, the short two-hour nap simply made her cranky when Carmine finally came to wake her up. “I need to get off this fucking train or I'm going to lose my damn mind. And where'd you put my fucking bra?! WHY IS IT ALWAYS MY FUCKING BRA?!”
Carmine didn't have an answer for that, even after having scrubbed through the interior footage, and her memories, she couldn't piece together what had happened to it. One moment it was tucked in neatly with Eve's other clothing and the next it was gone. Carmine hadn't detected any tampering with her memory, or the video feeds from inside the train, so she had chalked it up to corrupted data. Eve dug around for a smoke and lit it, “It has to be targeted at this point. Do you have any idea how many fucking bras I've lost?! Normal people just wear them out, or outgrow them! But not me… ohhhh no, not me! I LOSE THEM!”
She angrily pulled on her cigarette, “I swear, Carmine, if I ever catch the fucker responsible for my lost bras you won't be able to count the number of war crimes I commit!”
Carmine giggled cutely at her rabid assertion before beckoning her to her feet. “Alright, well, potential war crimes aside, we need to do a little shopping before we head to the condo anyway. You'll have the chance to pick up as many bras as you want.” Carmine waggled her hands, indicating Eve needed to take them and Eve huffed before allowing herself to be pulled to her feet.
“Hold up, what condo? What did you mean by ‘our’ condo?” Eve buckled up her chest holster and threw her overcoat on as Carmine began to explain.
“I bought us a cheap condo in the slums. It's a real pile of shit but should be the perfect location for staging our little coup. Seriously, the building is about ten years away from being demolished but oh my god the drapes are so cute!” Carmine excitedly shared the listing photos with Eve via her commtag and Eve just shook her head.
“I hope the bed is halfway decent, even if the mattress is made of literal straw it'll be better than this bullshit.” She tilted her head to indicate the cots and made to open the door, only for a knock to sound from the other side. Puzzled, she opened the door and was met with a nervous-looking concierge. The small whiteboi stared up at her, a bruise was forming over its right eye and angry red lines streaked across its cheeks and throat from where it had been scratched.
“G-good afternoon, m-mistress! I've come to-HUURRNNKKK” The whiteboi was interrupted by Eve's knee impacting its crotch. The pathetic whelp crumpled to the floor, wheezing as it clutched at its sad excuse for genitals.
“Anyway, what about… whats-her-name, the chick we're supposed to meet up with? I know Cassidy mentioned it but I was so fucking out of it I completely missed it.” Eve stepped over the gasping faggot and into the narrow hall, Carmine gave the whiteboi a cursory kick on her way out as well.
“It was Lexa, darlin’, and yes, I've been in contact with her. Her lines were tapped and she was being actively monitored and followed. Luckily, I caught her when I did because she'd have been long dead before we stepped into the city. I managed to get her squirreled away in our condo after some rather intense guidance and she's been holed up ever since. The Hunters Guild has been incredibly curious as to how Lexa managed to ditch all their sophisticated tracking, but seem to have rated her a lower priority than getting the ball moving on arranging more sacrifices.”
Eve blew out a pink cloud of smoke from her nose as she came to the exit, “More fucking rituals? Ughhhh… What's their progress on this one? And please don't tell me we're going to have another all-nighter, I think I would just die immediately.”
Carmine stepped up next to her and gave Eve's ass a firm slap, “What?! You mean being awake for forty-eight hours isn't your definition of a good time?!”
Eve snapped back at her, “Watch it, woman! You're about two ill-planned words away from me charging the Guild HQ solo!”
Carmine rolled her eyes, “So testy… it's almost like you slept on a steel plate for a few hours after having your shit rocked for an entire night… No, baby, we aren't going to need to pull an all-nighter. They haven't located any decent candidates for the implantation process in this city. They have their eyes on a few hopefuls but haven't pulled the trigger. We've got time to work this one out at our pace.”
Eve's mood spun on a dime, “You mean… I'll get to sleep in a bed tonight?! FOR THE WHOLE NIGHT?!” Her glee at the idea was rapidly banishing the majority of the negative thoughts she'd been having.
Carmine laughed and bumped her shoulder, “Who said anything about sleeping? Maybe I had other plans for you?!” Eve broke into a grin and pulled the door leading from the train car open. The brightness of the sun was intense and the air was incredibly hot on her face. It had a dusty, ozone scent that she wasn't accustomed to. Shielding her eyes, Eve stepped out onto the platform and briefly scanned the location. It was unnaturally clean, for a station platform; the one they'd departed from in Helion had been riddled with gunshots, empty bottles, graffiti, vagrants, and three separate drug peddlers.
She'd been propositioned for sex twice and had nearly missed their departure time due to being wedged between two Black men after the second. Cartafell was a different beast; the floors were clear of trash, the folk milling about the platform were mostly keeping to themselves, and most of the graffiti had been recently painted over. Eve was impressed, if not somewhat apprehensive about the state of the platform. With almost 40 million people calling Cartafell home, the care and attention to its infrastructure struck Eve as… superfluous. Sure, moderate maintenance was a necessary part of life, but waging an indignant war against vandalism that would only ever result in expending more capital than it would save was… an interesting use of taxes.
Eve mused as she drew on her cigarette, “Kinda seems like maybe they're… expecting someone, huh?” It was the only thing that made sense to her; why bother putting lipstick on a pig when it'd just wallow in mud minutes later? No, Cartafell was anticipating a stupendously important guest, or guests, that had to be it. “Don't suppose you've heard any juicy rumblings on the subnet? Is Cartafell expecting royalty or the like?”
Carmine shook her head with a rather helpless shrug, “Not a single peep. That being said, I'm not entirely shocked; correspondence is so easy to intercept these days that high-level communications have mostly reverted to pen-and-paper transmission.”
Eve understood that; cryptography had long since reached the point where even rudimentary A. I could crack the strongest cipher in minutes. If you didn't want your secrets being aired, you wrote them down and sent them with armed couriers. But that didn't stop people from snooping, eavesdropping, or in some cases, abducting couriers. “Well something big is going down in Cartafell, and soon. If we don't hustle we're going to get caught up in whatever it is when we drop the power grid.”
The last thing Eve wanted was to commit the largest terrorist attack in recent memory while a gaggle of royalty was in town Shakin's hands. The City Guard along with The Hunters Guild would be on high alert and they'd be forced to run and gun their way out of the city, assuming they weren't immediately caught and executed. “Keep an ear out for gossip among low-class cleaners and bitchbois. If there's a big function going down where big players will be rubbing shoulders, it'll be well-staffed. Scum like that loves to chatter, even on the subnet.”
They strolled along the elevated station and Eve took in what little of the city she could see. The outdoor train dock was almost entirely made of sun-bleached concrete. Hints of graffiti could be seen under the thin coat of white paint that had been hastily applied to almost every surface. The gantry holding the roof over the platform reminded Eve of a gazebo. The steel girders holding the thick panes of tinted glass were similarly painted and it served to make the platform feel more like a picnic area than a bustling metro zone.
Over the railing was a sheer drop of almost 200 feet to the city streets below. Peering over, Eve could barely make out the dim lights of passing cars. The roads below were suspended in perpetual darkness due to the surrounding highrise apartments and the large railway that cut through them. Near the end of the platform, a large gateway led down to the City Bound Train or CBT. Helion had its own CBT but Cartafell's tracks seemed to be more extensive than the ones Eve was accustomed to.
The city was split into four quadrants, each with its subdivisions. Quad-One was the northwest corner Quad-Two the Northeast and so on. Each quadrant pivoted around a central nodule housing the City Core. A massive ring-road looped around it and in the center stood a gargantuan spire of steel and glass. It could be seen from just about every point of the city, and could, theoretically see every part of the city. It reminded Eve of a massive panopticon and she shuddered; if it weren't for Carmine masking their presence they'd have been gunned down on the platform by now.
The weather in Cartafell was far milder than in Helion, being closer to the equator and further from the Dunloria Mountain Range. There was hardly ever any rain, and the Melton River that had once flowed through the city had long since dried up. The concrete aqueduct that had carried it through Quad One and Quad Two was now a barren, gray scar that cut a line across the city and served as a permanent reminder of what once was. As a result of the weather, the majority of the whites living in Cartafell were heavily tanned.
It was a natural consequence of the sun exposure, and most whites wore the darkened skin with an air of pride. But they were also careful not to tan too deeply; If they were suspected to be encroaching on imitating the sacred skin of their Black superiors they would be Flayed alive. Tourists stood out among the crowd with their fair skin, Eve and Carmine looked like ghosts compared to the locals and it would make it harder to remain anonymous for long.
Carmine hummed melodically as she leaned on the railing, “Feels pretty tropical, huh? It's too bad the ocean is another day's train ride away. I'd have liked to have seen it.” The Atlantic sat directly west another thousand miles and had been slowly receding for hundreds of years. After the ice caps had thawed the waters had crept inland, robbing countries of shoreline and people of homes. But in the years after the Race War, the waters had begun to shrink back from the coasts. Ruins and treasures were left behind and the Cities were always quick to lay claim to valuable new land.
Eve sighed as she finished her smoke, “we'll go, one day. Who knows, maybe we'll find some treasure like the rest of those bloody pirates I'm always reading about.” They headed for the CBT gate and boarded the Quad Two line. The interior of the monorail cars had all been sanitized and the scent of bleach stung Eve's nose. “There isn't a single used condom on this entire car. Honestly, they're putting in some effort; I'm impressed!”
Back in Helion, it wasn't unusual to accidentally sit on someone's fresh cumstain. Most of the handrails or roof loops had used condoms tied to them or discarded haphazardly across the floor. Eve could think of only two occasions where she hadn't been used by a Black man while riding the train cars, and in both instances, it had been because they were interrupted by a fight. There was no such thing as “public indecency” laws in the Free Cities for Black folk. Nothing they did could ever be seen as indecent and because consent didn't apply to whites in the age of majority, anything was fair game.
Eve had lost more than one suspect by trying to follow them onto the train. She'd inevitably end up sandwiched between three or four black men and the perp would get away while she was stuck servicing them. It was one of the main deciding factors in her picking up the Percheron. Sitting on the freshly bleached seat, she had a pang of regret for leaving it behind in Helion, but there were no roads between the cities, and the next cargo train that could accommodate it wouldn't depart for another week.
Eve leaned her head into Carmine's shoulder and groused, “Can’t we get a car? Hell, I'd even take an auto taxi over this! I just got off a train and now I'm back on one.”
Carmine chuckled and stroked her hair. “There's a dealership about three steps from the first station on this line; don't you worry your pretty little head, we'll have our freedom back soon.”
Eve was both elated and mildly concerned at just how easily that problem had solved itself. If she wasn't careful she'd become a useless woman by constantly calling on Carmine to resolve her problems. The train wasn't that big of an inconvenience for her, in the grand scheme it would be a few minutes of her life stuck in a metal tube. But to have that minor gripe be resolved so effortlessly and without any pushback struck her as enabling.
But that was fine, wasn't it? She could be a little greedy when she wanted, right? Considering all she'd been through, and all she had left to go through, wasn't it only fair that she be spoiled on occasion? It wasn't like she was asking Carmine to light her cigarettes or put her pants on for her. She hadn't gotten to the point of indolence yet, so it was fine, right?
Their car was slowly filling up with other people coming off the maglev, some of the people smiled and gave Eve and Carmine appreciative nods or waves in recognition of their heroics and Eve winced. “Honestly, the sooner we can ditch the crowds, the better. What dealership is it? Like, an actual dealership, or one of those greasy used car joints?”
Carmine patted the top of her head, “Babe if you complain about the dealership or the car we get, I'm going to string you up to the ceiling of our condo by your nipples and force-feed you laxatives.”
Eve blinked owlishly as she craned her head to make eye contact with the android. “That's… wildly specific. Carmine, have you been thinking about that for a while?” The blonde failed to reply, but Eve could interpret the silence to mean she would likely end up tied to the ceiling in some capacity in her near future. “You know… I don't think the dealership matters much after all… I'm grateful that you found one so quickly and would go out of your way to oblige my request…”
Eve was fishing for a life preserver but the android remained stoic in the face of her appreciation. “OK, but… you're going to use nipple clamps, right? It's not going to be alligator clips, right?”
Carmine shook her head, “See, I think it's about time I start taking a little more agency in this relationship. I've been pumping the brakes, what with the whole ‘Cult’ thing going on, but I believe I should take a more active role in how things happen. I can see now that I've been a little too lenient with you, catering to far too many whims.”
Dread crept up Eve's spine as her lover spoke. “It won't be nipple clamps or alligator clips. Those are far too… removable… for my needs. I think the correct thing to do in this situation is to have your nipples pierced so I may install all sorts of fun things!”
Eve Blanche, “Wha- b-but you can't just-”
Carmine interrupted, “Oh but I can, and I will. You're a cunt, my love. A desperate little pussy with no real authority or self-respect; you have been since I met you. Your past relationships outside of fucking every Black man you come across are nothing but a string of throwing yourself between the legs of women who think they're better than you.” Carmine demonstrated her point by cupping one of Eve's breasts.
“You were waiting to be claimed, patiently letting yourself be leashed by anyone with a stronger sense of self than you. It's almost as though your need to be dominated is fucking instinctual because even when you try to stand up for yourself, you still come across as a pathetic bitch.” Eve started to wonder if maybe she should be earnestly afraid of what might happen to her at the hands of Carmine.
“But it's fine, you see? Because I'm here now and I happen to love pathetic women like you. I adore them, my skin prickles every single time you avert your eyes, apologize, or try to appeal to me when you know you've fucked up. I love it so much it makes me want to…” The android paused briefly before continuing, “Well, anyway, I'll be taking responsibility for your body moving forward. If you have any complaints about that, I strongly urge you to keep them to yourself because they'll only end up making things worse for you. Am I clear?”
Eve swallowed. She desperately wanted to know what Carmine was going to say before she changed tracks. Makes her want to… what?! And was it so bad that it was better left unsaid?! Carmine was smiling down at her as though she were a saint smiling at a reclaimed sinner. There was only one answer Eve could give that wouldn't lead directly to her being tortured for hours and she was almost too afraid to give it.
“Yes, mistress, I understand. Your will is my pleasure and my body, your toy. Please love on me as you desire.” Ever wondered at what other modifications would be made to her? Nipple piercings seemed like the least of her worries if the android was willing to push her control this far. But Eve had made her choice, it was Carmine or nothing, and given another thousand chances to make that same choice, Eve knew she'd chose Carmine every single time.
“Ohhhhh I'm so fucking happy to hear that! I promise you'll love it. Honestly, baby, I'm going to treat you so fucking good; you have no idea!” And just like that, Carmine was back to her air-headed self. Eve still hadn't gotten a handle on the abrupt switches in demeanor, the A. I could go from clinical seriousness to bubbly, brain-dead bimbo in the blink of an eye. It made it incredibly difficult to gauge just how serious the situation was at any given moment and regularly caused Eve a great deal of anxiety.
“So, wait, does that mean I'm still getting strung up to the ceiling by my nipples? I didn't even complain about the dealership! Carmine! Why are you smiling like that?!”
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
The dealership did turn out to be one of the scuzzy used vehicle vendors. It occupied the bottom floor of a mini-mall in a relatively low-income portion of Quad Two. The interior was falling apart and the manager was an aging Black man with no front teeth and enough rings to almost completely cover his fingers. He looked like the kind of man who could have potentially run for a City Council position about 40 years ago, but never made it. His suit was cheap and he reeked of Slix and alcohol. Eve had pegged his intoxication within his first four words but by the time she had his cock in her mouth, most of the negotiations were already done.
The man had perked up when they'd offered to purchase a vehicle outright; apparently, opportunities like the one they'd presented to him didn't come by often. Eve listened in as she bobbed her head up and down the man's shaft, mentally reviewing the available cars he had in stock. Nothing stood out to her, and ultimately she decided that the best thing they'd be walking away with would likely be the man's cum.
Carmine haggled back and forth with the man until they eventually settled on a fair price for an old 2135, Buchanan Navarch. The four-door SUV had originally set the standard for rolling luxury while maintaining almost unparalleled offroad capabilities. The interior was far more spacious than Eve's Percheron would ever be, and back when the vehicles had first rolled out of production, they had boasted some of the most high-end seat functions on the market. But things had changed quite a bit since the heyday of the Navarch, and it was now considered something of a middling town car.
Eve's Percheron was an antique, a true classic, a priceless relic of a time long since passed. The Navarch was… well it was a vehicle. The offroad functionality was utterly useless to the average citizen, who only ventured out of the city walls to either die or as some form of punishment. The marketing surrounding the vehicle had made its rugged design part of its defining characteristics, “weather any sea”, they had said. But it was mass-produced for one reason, and one reason only: private military contractors.
Fully kitted, the Navarch could be one of the most versatile and deadly mobile combat platforms on the streets. Its low, wide stance made it capable of handling high-speed maneuvering, the ample space and segmented carapace made modifying the body structure so simple just about anyone with a wrench could do it. Mounting heavy weapons or extending the cab for troop transport was simple and didn't compromise the performance of the vehicle.
But time had eroded its purpose and the Navarch had lost its place as the favored child among private security firms. These days just about anyone could purchase actual military surplus which meant the Navarch was a glorified shopping cart. The man blew his load down the back of Eve's throat as he and Carmine shook hands, closing the deal. After collecting the keys the man brought them to the garage and unlocked the storage unit containing the Navarch.
Eve and Carmine had declined the perfunctory wash offered by the dealership to remove the thick coat of dust that had settled on it. The man had shrugged and wished them the best before turning and opening the garage door, through which they left. Eve immediately hated the vehicle; being so high off the ground gave her the uncanny feeling of floating.
The tires and shocks cushioned the passengers from anything but the most severe bumps and so it left her feeling disconnected from the road. Everything about the Navarch simply drove her to yearn for her Percheron even more. But she knew better than to express those feelings, lest she incite more… thorough wrath from Carmine. Instead, she opted to scroll the subnet, huddled uncomfortably in the oversized passenger seat.
Eventually, the car dipped into an underground parking garage and Carmine pulled into a parking space ringed in a neon-green holo-projection indicating it was their designated spot. Eve looked over at Carmine quizzically, “I thought I was getting my nipples pierced?”
Carmine smiled and shook her head, “Unfortunately that particular bit of business is a way down our priority list, baby. It'll happen soon, but we should check in with our new roommate and establish some level of rapport before wandering the city like a couple of tourists.” Eve had forgotten about Lexa. As she climbed from the Navarch she wondered what kind of woman she was. They'd probably be awakening her child at some point as well and the thought caused Eve to grow anxious.
“I wonder which God she's carrying the seed of?” Though it was more rhetorical than an actual question. There was no way to know until her colors manifested, and even then, it might be so arbitrary as to not make any clear connection. They had just assumed Jasper had gotten the child of the Blind God since she lost her vision, hell, even Eve failed to see the link between her colors and the Mournful God.
For all they knew, Lexa could just self-destruct and take the apartment down around them. Carmine started making her way towards the elevator leading to their condo, “We'll see, either way, we're going to have to play nice otherwise we'll
be back to square one with no one to turn to.” Eve swallowed and fell in behind her lover. A lot was riding on this meeting and she had a bad habit of fucking things up.
The lack of resources and extremely harsh conditions had led to an incredibly severe regression among the bands of humans that chose to make the wind-blasted dunes their home. They became nomads, roaming great distances in search of food and water, supplies and tools, and most importantly, other humans. To keep their warbands alive, they needed bodies, and because of the inferiority of their genetics, coupled with the rarity of resources, producing enough offspring to maintain their scarce way of life was next to impossible.
This naturally resulted in most warbands kidnapping as many people as they could in their raids. Introducing new breeding stock to their bloodlines was an important factor in keeping their genetic lineage from degrading further, and in the worst of times, the extra souls could be expended as sustenance. These cannibalistic practices had brought many to believe that the Wanderers had finally diverged entirely from humanity. Eve would catch a news blurb every few months about another raid happening somewhere on the continent but had never experienced one herself.
Rumors of the Wanderers were as varied as rumors got; from there being hidden cities deep beneath the sand to wonderous oases dotted throughout the desert. Everyone had their idea of what the Wanderers were, and with nothing available to debunk any of the rumors, they were allowed to spread like wildfire. Not one person had ever been recovered from a Wanderer raid, and those who came forward to claim they'd found their way back to a City after being taken had all been proven to be lying.
As Eve and Carmine crashed through the final door leading to the breached compartment, Eve finally realized that the rumors of the Wanderers were woefully short of accurately describing them. The massive lance that had pierced the side of the train car served two purposes, the first was to latch the land yacht to the car, and the second was to allow raider access. The tip of the lance was completely hollow, and Wanderers scrambled out of it and into the car like cockroaches. The rancid stink that filled the narrow compartment hit Eve like a slap in the face.
Her eyes burned as she tried to keep herself from retching just beyond the doorway. Either they'd released some kind of gas into the compartment as a breaching maneuver, or they just naturally stank like that, Eve didn't know and didn't care. The first raider to spot Eve turned in her direction and howled a great, ear-piercing screech the likes of which Eve had never heard. It was a feral, shrill, berserk scream of incomprehensible rage, the sort of sound no true human could replicate. And it worked; Eve was bolted in place as her instinctual fear of the monster overrode her consciousness.
It was swathed head to toe in filthy scraps of fabric and leather, stitched together in a patchwork bodysuit of thick linens and skin. Blood and other fluids stained the fabric in a pattern that made it look like a molting animal. Its face was covered by a strange bone mask with incredibly narrow eye slits. The mouth curled up in a bizarre and uncanny simulacrum of a smile that caused the hair on the back of Eve's neck to stand painfully on end. Its movements were spastic and frenetic, as though the energy in its body was too much for it to control. This wasn't just ‘not human’, this was a monster, a horrendous demon in the form of a human.
Any semblance of human traits had long since left this creature behind on the evolutionary scale. There would be no reasoning, there would be no dialogue, and there would be no compassion or empathy or even understanding. Carmine stepped in front of Eve and removed the creature's head from its body with a flick of her War-wire. The two daggers it held clattered to the floor as its body lost cohesive contact with its brain stem. Eve's eyes trailed to the floor where the blades skittered to her feet. The handles were very distinctly the ends of femurs from human thighs.
“EVE! SNAP THE FUCK OUT OF IT!” Carmine bellowed as she kicked shut an open door that was jutting into the hallway. Two more of the creatures whipped their heads around to investigate the source of the bang. One of them dropped a lifeless child to the floor and snatched a set of daggers from its belt as it turned to charge. Eve mechanically raised her Deckland and fired at it but the creature leapt and twisted unnaturally through the air to avoid the shot. The second beast snarled and let out another blood-curdling screech that momentarily deafened Eve.
Even having just come out of a life-or-death battle with a God hadn't prepared her for the level of inhumanity she was witnessing. The sound of muffled gunfire rattled through the connecting door to the train car on the other side of the Wanderers. Carmine intercepted the one sailing through the air and slammed it into the steel floor panels with such force that they buckled under the hellspawn. Its head exploded from the impact and the second Wanderer drew something from its waistband. Eve thought it looked like some kind of metal pipe, but then the creature raised it like a gun.
Every instinct in her body screamed at her to dodge and she barely managed to throw herself against the wall as a hunk of lead was thrown from the end of its weapon. The projectile punched a hole through the door behind her the size of her palm and she suddenly snapped back into the moment. She raised her gun and began to return fire as the abomination attempted the same uncanny acrobatics as the last one. Eve was ready for it and managed to peg it with several shots as it spun through the air.
Its body slammed gracelessly into the floor and gurgled as she stepped up and put two more rounds into the back of its skull. Screams erupted from the next compartment and Eve locked eyes with Carmine as they charged towards the door. Carmine set her boot into the handle so hard that the slab of steel bent in on itself as it swung into the next car. One of the Wanderers had been directly behind it, and as a result, ended up plastered all over the wall where the door had pancaked it. Eve caught a glimpse of a woman being dragged, kicking and screaming, into the end of the lance that had come through the wall.
She was missing an eye and a cut across her body from the struggle. She made eye contact with Eve in the second before her head disappeared down the tip of the lance. “FUCK! CARMINE, GET HER!” Eve began to lay down suppressing fire on the group of three wanderers huddled around the door on the opposite side of the car. They scattered like startled animals and Eve could see the breaching charge they'd planted on the door. Two of them ducked into an open doorway on the right side of the hall and the third lunged for Carmine as she came to the tip of the lance. With a flick of her wrist, the monster lost both its arms and wailed as it flailed its stumps wildly.
Carmine dove down the tub and Eve continued to pin the other two wanderers in their room with periodic shots as they poked their heads out. A loud beeping began to emit from the device they'd stuck to the door and Eve twirled behind an open door to her left just before it exploded. Shards of metal sprayed down the hall and pinged harmlessly off the door. The concussive blast further served to damage her hearing and Eve was certain that she'd just lost her right eardrum. She didn't bother checking the ammo count in her magazine before replacing it with a new one; she stuck the gun into the hall, fired two shots, and then poked her head out to inspect the scene.
The blast had torn the door off its hinges and through the smoke Eve could see the faces of terrified passengers huddling on the floor of the train car. There were dozens of them desperately trying to swarm over one another to get to the safe end of the car. It had likely been one of the designated safe cars, which explained why the Wanderers needed to blow the door open instead of just batter it down. Carmine emerged from the end of the lance carrying an unconscious woman, she turned back and pointed her hand down the tube before her wrist unhinged and revealed a barrel.
With a meaty ‘thump’ a small orb was ejected from her wrist and she brought the woman towards Eve. There was a hiss as the projectile Carmine launched began to discharge gas into the lance. One of the two trapped Wanderers tried its luck and dove for the newly opened doorway at the end of the car. Eve plugged it with two shots and as it hit the floor she followed up with another four. “She alive?” Eve glanced at the woman draped under Carmine's arm.
“Yep, gonna need a new eye and probably a new hand, but she'll live.” Carmine dumped the woman to the floor and turned to face the far end of the train car. “I think they'll be detaching soon, based on the chatter I'm hearing the Wanderers are facing some pretty heavy losses compared to their gains. The second yacht is five cars down from us and across several safe-cars so we won't be interfering with that fight.”
Eve grimaced, “how many have they taken?”
Carmine entered her fugue state for a brief moment, likely to review the external camera feeds. “It looks like they managed to snag 13 people. We got the light raid compared to the other side, once they're all said and done the Wanderers will have lost 15 by my count.”
Eve kept one eye on the doorway where the remaining raider was biding its time. “That includes the monster in there, right?” Carmine nodded and Eve gestured at the people in the other car to continue moving back. She stepped forward tentatively, edging herself closer and closer to the doorway with her pistol raised. She had three shots left and needed to make them count. She took a deep breath and gathered what little courage she had to make the final step around the edge of the doorway.
But just as she started lifting her foot there was a massive ‘thunk’ that rocked the car. The Wanderer trapped in the room exploded out the door and hurled itself at the opening of the lance. Eve had just enough time to put a single shot into the back of its thigh before the 4 huge barbs holding the lance in place began to retract into the lance. With a final, prolonged screech of steel, the lance slid from the open side of the train and tumbled through the desert as it was retracted towards the retreating yacht. Eve threw a shoulder against the gaping hole and aimed the receding vehicle. She could see figures moving about on its exposed deck, hauling things to an open grate that led below the deck.
Some of those things they were hauling looked an awful lot like people, and so she fired. Partly in the hopes of pegging a few of the Wanderers, but mainly in the hopes of hitting the civilians; if she could spare even one of them from the fate that awaited them, it would be worth it. But she had no way to tell if any of her shots landed; in all likelihood, it had been an entirely fruitless waste of ammunition. But she had tried, and the people in the next train car began to cheer and applaud both her and Carmine's efforts to save them. They threw praise at her feet, bowed, clasped their hands, and cried as they began to emerge from the cramped car.
Eve felt nothing but disgust for the creatures. They'd huddled in their shelter like a bunch of trapped rats; every last one of them was white and Eve had absolutely no doubt in her mind that the ones being thrown through the grate on the yacht had been the few valor Black Kings and Queens who'd stepped up to protect the train. Her rage built as she considered the plight of the poor souls now doomed to an unfathomable existence among the Warband that had kidnapped them. She turned from the crowd and spent the last few bullets she had made sure the Wanderers bleeding out on the floor were truly dead.
Carmine caught up and fell in beside her as they walked, “One day we'll need to go after them, too. The Wanderers are a threat that cannot be allowed to exist.” Eve agreed with her but said nothing. “Did you get a look at their faces? I checked under one of those masks and… I don't think those things are human anymore…” Eve didn't particularly care what they were; human or not the result would be the same either way.
“I'm tired… Carmine. So very, deeply tired. It hasn't even been a day since our last near-death experience. I don't know how much I can take if things keep up this pace.” They passed by the corpse of the child; there was a gaping bite wound in its neck. “How long till we get to Cartafell now?”
Carmine closed her eyes as she calculated, “The train didn't stop, but it did slow down after it was hooked. It looks like two and a half hours, give or take.”
Eve nodded at that. “Let me sleep until we arrive. I just… I don't want to be awake, right now, ok?”
Carmine pulled her in for a tight hug and kissed the side of her head, “As you wish, darlin’.”
Eve slept fitfully. None of the dreams she had made any sense and ultimately only served to disquiet her. Instead of being restful, the short two-hour nap simply made her cranky when Carmine finally came to wake her up. “I need to get off this fucking train or I'm going to lose my damn mind. And where'd you put my fucking bra?! WHY IS IT ALWAYS MY FUCKING BRA?!”
Carmine didn't have an answer for that, even after having scrubbed through the interior footage, and her memories, she couldn't piece together what had happened to it. One moment it was tucked in neatly with Eve's other clothing and the next it was gone. Carmine hadn't detected any tampering with her memory, or the video feeds from inside the train, so she had chalked it up to corrupted data. Eve dug around for a smoke and lit it, “It has to be targeted at this point. Do you have any idea how many fucking bras I've lost?! Normal people just wear them out, or outgrow them! But not me… ohhhh no, not me! I LOSE THEM!”
She angrily pulled on her cigarette, “I swear, Carmine, if I ever catch the fucker responsible for my lost bras you won't be able to count the number of war crimes I commit!”
Carmine giggled cutely at her rabid assertion before beckoning her to her feet. “Alright, well, potential war crimes aside, we need to do a little shopping before we head to the condo anyway. You'll have the chance to pick up as many bras as you want.” Carmine waggled her hands, indicating Eve needed to take them and Eve huffed before allowing herself to be pulled to her feet.
“Hold up, what condo? What did you mean by ‘our’ condo?” Eve buckled up her chest holster and threw her overcoat on as Carmine began to explain.
“I bought us a cheap condo in the slums. It's a real pile of shit but should be the perfect location for staging our little coup. Seriously, the building is about ten years away from being demolished but oh my god the drapes are so cute!” Carmine excitedly shared the listing photos with Eve via her commtag and Eve just shook her head.
“I hope the bed is halfway decent, even if the mattress is made of literal straw it'll be better than this bullshit.” She tilted her head to indicate the cots and made to open the door, only for a knock to sound from the other side. Puzzled, she opened the door and was met with a nervous-looking concierge. The small whiteboi stared up at her, a bruise was forming over its right eye and angry red lines streaked across its cheeks and throat from where it had been scratched.
“G-good afternoon, m-mistress! I've come to-HUURRNNKKK” The whiteboi was interrupted by Eve's knee impacting its crotch. The pathetic whelp crumpled to the floor, wheezing as it clutched at its sad excuse for genitals.
“Anyway, what about… whats-her-name, the chick we're supposed to meet up with? I know Cassidy mentioned it but I was so fucking out of it I completely missed it.” Eve stepped over the gasping faggot and into the narrow hall, Carmine gave the whiteboi a cursory kick on her way out as well.
“It was Lexa, darlin’, and yes, I've been in contact with her. Her lines were tapped and she was being actively monitored and followed. Luckily, I caught her when I did because she'd have been long dead before we stepped into the city. I managed to get her squirreled away in our condo after some rather intense guidance and she's been holed up ever since. The Hunters Guild has been incredibly curious as to how Lexa managed to ditch all their sophisticated tracking, but seem to have rated her a lower priority than getting the ball moving on arranging more sacrifices.”
Eve blew out a pink cloud of smoke from her nose as she came to the exit, “More fucking rituals? Ughhhh… What's their progress on this one? And please don't tell me we're going to have another all-nighter, I think I would just die immediately.”
Carmine stepped up next to her and gave Eve's ass a firm slap, “What?! You mean being awake for forty-eight hours isn't your definition of a good time?!”
Eve snapped back at her, “Watch it, woman! You're about two ill-planned words away from me charging the Guild HQ solo!”
Carmine rolled her eyes, “So testy… it's almost like you slept on a steel plate for a few hours after having your shit rocked for an entire night… No, baby, we aren't going to need to pull an all-nighter. They haven't located any decent candidates for the implantation process in this city. They have their eyes on a few hopefuls but haven't pulled the trigger. We've got time to work this one out at our pace.”
Eve's mood spun on a dime, “You mean… I'll get to sleep in a bed tonight?! FOR THE WHOLE NIGHT?!” Her glee at the idea was rapidly banishing the majority of the negative thoughts she'd been having.
Carmine laughed and bumped her shoulder, “Who said anything about sleeping? Maybe I had other plans for you?!” Eve broke into a grin and pulled the door leading from the train car open. The brightness of the sun was intense and the air was incredibly hot on her face. It had a dusty, ozone scent that she wasn't accustomed to. Shielding her eyes, Eve stepped out onto the platform and briefly scanned the location. It was unnaturally clean, for a station platform; the one they'd departed from in Helion had been riddled with gunshots, empty bottles, graffiti, vagrants, and three separate drug peddlers.
She'd been propositioned for sex twice and had nearly missed their departure time due to being wedged between two Black men after the second. Cartafell was a different beast; the floors were clear of trash, the folk milling about the platform were mostly keeping to themselves, and most of the graffiti had been recently painted over. Eve was impressed, if not somewhat apprehensive about the state of the platform. With almost 40 million people calling Cartafell home, the care and attention to its infrastructure struck Eve as… superfluous. Sure, moderate maintenance was a necessary part of life, but waging an indignant war against vandalism that would only ever result in expending more capital than it would save was… an interesting use of taxes.
Eve mused as she drew on her cigarette, “Kinda seems like maybe they're… expecting someone, huh?” It was the only thing that made sense to her; why bother putting lipstick on a pig when it'd just wallow in mud minutes later? No, Cartafell was anticipating a stupendously important guest, or guests, that had to be it. “Don't suppose you've heard any juicy rumblings on the subnet? Is Cartafell expecting royalty or the like?”
Carmine shook her head with a rather helpless shrug, “Not a single peep. That being said, I'm not entirely shocked; correspondence is so easy to intercept these days that high-level communications have mostly reverted to pen-and-paper transmission.”
Eve understood that; cryptography had long since reached the point where even rudimentary A. I could crack the strongest cipher in minutes. If you didn't want your secrets being aired, you wrote them down and sent them with armed couriers. But that didn't stop people from snooping, eavesdropping, or in some cases, abducting couriers. “Well something big is going down in Cartafell, and soon. If we don't hustle we're going to get caught up in whatever it is when we drop the power grid.”
The last thing Eve wanted was to commit the largest terrorist attack in recent memory while a gaggle of royalty was in town Shakin's hands. The City Guard along with The Hunters Guild would be on high alert and they'd be forced to run and gun their way out of the city, assuming they weren't immediately caught and executed. “Keep an ear out for gossip among low-class cleaners and bitchbois. If there's a big function going down where big players will be rubbing shoulders, it'll be well-staffed. Scum like that loves to chatter, even on the subnet.”
They strolled along the elevated station and Eve took in what little of the city she could see. The outdoor train dock was almost entirely made of sun-bleached concrete. Hints of graffiti could be seen under the thin coat of white paint that had been hastily applied to almost every surface. The gantry holding the roof over the platform reminded Eve of a gazebo. The steel girders holding the thick panes of tinted glass were similarly painted and it served to make the platform feel more like a picnic area than a bustling metro zone.
Over the railing was a sheer drop of almost 200 feet to the city streets below. Peering over, Eve could barely make out the dim lights of passing cars. The roads below were suspended in perpetual darkness due to the surrounding highrise apartments and the large railway that cut through them. Near the end of the platform, a large gateway led down to the City Bound Train or CBT. Helion had its own CBT but Cartafell's tracks seemed to be more extensive than the ones Eve was accustomed to.
The city was split into four quadrants, each with its subdivisions. Quad-One was the northwest corner Quad-Two the Northeast and so on. Each quadrant pivoted around a central nodule housing the City Core. A massive ring-road looped around it and in the center stood a gargantuan spire of steel and glass. It could be seen from just about every point of the city, and could, theoretically see every part of the city. It reminded Eve of a massive panopticon and she shuddered; if it weren't for Carmine masking their presence they'd have been gunned down on the platform by now.
The weather in Cartafell was far milder than in Helion, being closer to the equator and further from the Dunloria Mountain Range. There was hardly ever any rain, and the Melton River that had once flowed through the city had long since dried up. The concrete aqueduct that had carried it through Quad One and Quad Two was now a barren, gray scar that cut a line across the city and served as a permanent reminder of what once was. As a result of the weather, the majority of the whites living in Cartafell were heavily tanned.
It was a natural consequence of the sun exposure, and most whites wore the darkened skin with an air of pride. But they were also careful not to tan too deeply; If they were suspected to be encroaching on imitating the sacred skin of their Black superiors they would be Flayed alive. Tourists stood out among the crowd with their fair skin, Eve and Carmine looked like ghosts compared to the locals and it would make it harder to remain anonymous for long.
Carmine hummed melodically as she leaned on the railing, “Feels pretty tropical, huh? It's too bad the ocean is another day's train ride away. I'd have liked to have seen it.” The Atlantic sat directly west another thousand miles and had been slowly receding for hundreds of years. After the ice caps had thawed the waters had crept inland, robbing countries of shoreline and people of homes. But in the years after the Race War, the waters had begun to shrink back from the coasts. Ruins and treasures were left behind and the Cities were always quick to lay claim to valuable new land.
Eve sighed as she finished her smoke, “we'll go, one day. Who knows, maybe we'll find some treasure like the rest of those bloody pirates I'm always reading about.” They headed for the CBT gate and boarded the Quad Two line. The interior of the monorail cars had all been sanitized and the scent of bleach stung Eve's nose. “There isn't a single used condom on this entire car. Honestly, they're putting in some effort; I'm impressed!”
Back in Helion, it wasn't unusual to accidentally sit on someone's fresh cumstain. Most of the handrails or roof loops had used condoms tied to them or discarded haphazardly across the floor. Eve could think of only two occasions where she hadn't been used by a Black man while riding the train cars, and in both instances, it had been because they were interrupted by a fight. There was no such thing as “public indecency” laws in the Free Cities for Black folk. Nothing they did could ever be seen as indecent and because consent didn't apply to whites in the age of majority, anything was fair game.
Eve had lost more than one suspect by trying to follow them onto the train. She'd inevitably end up sandwiched between three or four black men and the perp would get away while she was stuck servicing them. It was one of the main deciding factors in her picking up the Percheron. Sitting on the freshly bleached seat, she had a pang of regret for leaving it behind in Helion, but there were no roads between the cities, and the next cargo train that could accommodate it wouldn't depart for another week.
Eve leaned her head into Carmine's shoulder and groused, “Can’t we get a car? Hell, I'd even take an auto taxi over this! I just got off a train and now I'm back on one.”
Carmine chuckled and stroked her hair. “There's a dealership about three steps from the first station on this line; don't you worry your pretty little head, we'll have our freedom back soon.”
Eve was both elated and mildly concerned at just how easily that problem had solved itself. If she wasn't careful she'd become a useless woman by constantly calling on Carmine to resolve her problems. The train wasn't that big of an inconvenience for her, in the grand scheme it would be a few minutes of her life stuck in a metal tube. But to have that minor gripe be resolved so effortlessly and without any pushback struck her as enabling.
But that was fine, wasn't it? She could be a little greedy when she wanted, right? Considering all she'd been through, and all she had left to go through, wasn't it only fair that she be spoiled on occasion? It wasn't like she was asking Carmine to light her cigarettes or put her pants on for her. She hadn't gotten to the point of indolence yet, so it was fine, right?
Their car was slowly filling up with other people coming off the maglev, some of the people smiled and gave Eve and Carmine appreciative nods or waves in recognition of their heroics and Eve winced. “Honestly, the sooner we can ditch the crowds, the better. What dealership is it? Like, an actual dealership, or one of those greasy used car joints?”
Carmine patted the top of her head, “Babe if you complain about the dealership or the car we get, I'm going to string you up to the ceiling of our condo by your nipples and force-feed you laxatives.”
Eve blinked owlishly as she craned her head to make eye contact with the android. “That's… wildly specific. Carmine, have you been thinking about that for a while?” The blonde failed to reply, but Eve could interpret the silence to mean she would likely end up tied to the ceiling in some capacity in her near future. “You know… I don't think the dealership matters much after all… I'm grateful that you found one so quickly and would go out of your way to oblige my request…”
Eve was fishing for a life preserver but the android remained stoic in the face of her appreciation. “OK, but… you're going to use nipple clamps, right? It's not going to be alligator clips, right?”
Carmine shook her head, “See, I think it's about time I start taking a little more agency in this relationship. I've been pumping the brakes, what with the whole ‘Cult’ thing going on, but I believe I should take a more active role in how things happen. I can see now that I've been a little too lenient with you, catering to far too many whims.”
Dread crept up Eve's spine as her lover spoke. “It won't be nipple clamps or alligator clips. Those are far too… removable… for my needs. I think the correct thing to do in this situation is to have your nipples pierced so I may install all sorts of fun things!”
Eve Blanche, “Wha- b-but you can't just-”
Carmine interrupted, “Oh but I can, and I will. You're a cunt, my love. A desperate little pussy with no real authority or self-respect; you have been since I met you. Your past relationships outside of fucking every Black man you come across are nothing but a string of throwing yourself between the legs of women who think they're better than you.” Carmine demonstrated her point by cupping one of Eve's breasts.
“You were waiting to be claimed, patiently letting yourself be leashed by anyone with a stronger sense of self than you. It's almost as though your need to be dominated is fucking instinctual because even when you try to stand up for yourself, you still come across as a pathetic bitch.” Eve started to wonder if maybe she should be earnestly afraid of what might happen to her at the hands of Carmine.
“But it's fine, you see? Because I'm here now and I happen to love pathetic women like you. I adore them, my skin prickles every single time you avert your eyes, apologize, or try to appeal to me when you know you've fucked up. I love it so much it makes me want to…” The android paused briefly before continuing, “Well, anyway, I'll be taking responsibility for your body moving forward. If you have any complaints about that, I strongly urge you to keep them to yourself because they'll only end up making things worse for you. Am I clear?”
Eve swallowed. She desperately wanted to know what Carmine was going to say before she changed tracks. Makes her want to… what?! And was it so bad that it was better left unsaid?! Carmine was smiling down at her as though she were a saint smiling at a reclaimed sinner. There was only one answer Eve could give that wouldn't lead directly to her being tortured for hours and she was almost too afraid to give it.
“Yes, mistress, I understand. Your will is my pleasure and my body, your toy. Please love on me as you desire.” Ever wondered at what other modifications would be made to her? Nipple piercings seemed like the least of her worries if the android was willing to push her control this far. But Eve had made her choice, it was Carmine or nothing, and given another thousand chances to make that same choice, Eve knew she'd chose Carmine every single time.
“Ohhhhh I'm so fucking happy to hear that! I promise you'll love it. Honestly, baby, I'm going to treat you so fucking good; you have no idea!” And just like that, Carmine was back to her air-headed self. Eve still hadn't gotten a handle on the abrupt switches in demeanor, the A. I could go from clinical seriousness to bubbly, brain-dead bimbo in the blink of an eye. It made it incredibly difficult to gauge just how serious the situation was at any given moment and regularly caused Eve a great deal of anxiety.
“So, wait, does that mean I'm still getting strung up to the ceiling by my nipples? I didn't even complain about the dealership! Carmine! Why are you smiling like that?!”
-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-_-
The dealership did turn out to be one of the scuzzy used vehicle vendors. It occupied the bottom floor of a mini-mall in a relatively low-income portion of Quad Two. The interior was falling apart and the manager was an aging Black man with no front teeth and enough rings to almost completely cover his fingers. He looked like the kind of man who could have potentially run for a City Council position about 40 years ago, but never made it. His suit was cheap and he reeked of Slix and alcohol. Eve had pegged his intoxication within his first four words but by the time she had his cock in her mouth, most of the negotiations were already done.
The man had perked up when they'd offered to purchase a vehicle outright; apparently, opportunities like the one they'd presented to him didn't come by often. Eve listened in as she bobbed her head up and down the man's shaft, mentally reviewing the available cars he had in stock. Nothing stood out to her, and ultimately she decided that the best thing they'd be walking away with would likely be the man's cum.
Carmine haggled back and forth with the man until they eventually settled on a fair price for an old 2135, Buchanan Navarch. The four-door SUV had originally set the standard for rolling luxury while maintaining almost unparalleled offroad capabilities. The interior was far more spacious than Eve's Percheron would ever be, and back when the vehicles had first rolled out of production, they had boasted some of the most high-end seat functions on the market. But things had changed quite a bit since the heyday of the Navarch, and it was now considered something of a middling town car.
Eve's Percheron was an antique, a true classic, a priceless relic of a time long since passed. The Navarch was… well it was a vehicle. The offroad functionality was utterly useless to the average citizen, who only ventured out of the city walls to either die or as some form of punishment. The marketing surrounding the vehicle had made its rugged design part of its defining characteristics, “weather any sea”, they had said. But it was mass-produced for one reason, and one reason only: private military contractors.
Fully kitted, the Navarch could be one of the most versatile and deadly mobile combat platforms on the streets. Its low, wide stance made it capable of handling high-speed maneuvering, the ample space and segmented carapace made modifying the body structure so simple just about anyone with a wrench could do it. Mounting heavy weapons or extending the cab for troop transport was simple and didn't compromise the performance of the vehicle.
But time had eroded its purpose and the Navarch had lost its place as the favored child among private security firms. These days just about anyone could purchase actual military surplus which meant the Navarch was a glorified shopping cart. The man blew his load down the back of Eve's throat as he and Carmine shook hands, closing the deal. After collecting the keys the man brought them to the garage and unlocked the storage unit containing the Navarch.
Eve and Carmine had declined the perfunctory wash offered by the dealership to remove the thick coat of dust that had settled on it. The man had shrugged and wished them the best before turning and opening the garage door, through which they left. Eve immediately hated the vehicle; being so high off the ground gave her the uncanny feeling of floating.
The tires and shocks cushioned the passengers from anything but the most severe bumps and so it left her feeling disconnected from the road. Everything about the Navarch simply drove her to yearn for her Percheron even more. But she knew better than to express those feelings, lest she incite more… thorough wrath from Carmine. Instead, she opted to scroll the subnet, huddled uncomfortably in the oversized passenger seat.
Eventually, the car dipped into an underground parking garage and Carmine pulled into a parking space ringed in a neon-green holo-projection indicating it was their designated spot. Eve looked over at Carmine quizzically, “I thought I was getting my nipples pierced?”
Carmine smiled and shook her head, “Unfortunately that particular bit of business is a way down our priority list, baby. It'll happen soon, but we should check in with our new roommate and establish some level of rapport before wandering the city like a couple of tourists.” Eve had forgotten about Lexa. As she climbed from the Navarch she wondered what kind of woman she was. They'd probably be awakening her child at some point as well and the thought caused Eve to grow anxious.
“I wonder which God she's carrying the seed of?” Though it was more rhetorical than an actual question. There was no way to know until her colors manifested, and even then, it might be so arbitrary as to not make any clear connection. They had just assumed Jasper had gotten the child of the Blind God since she lost her vision, hell, even Eve failed to see the link between her colors and the Mournful God.
For all they knew, Lexa could just self-destruct and take the apartment down around them. Carmine started making her way towards the elevator leading to their condo, “We'll see, either way, we're going to have to play nice otherwise we'll
be back to square one with no one to turn to.” Eve swallowed and fell in behind her lover. A lot was riding on this meeting and she had a bad habit of fucking things up.
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